


Recognition

by cariandra



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 10:04:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5535818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cariandra/pseuds/cariandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was definitely a trap.  There was no way answering that transmission on an empty planet was a good idea.  Whoever had Rey wasn't just going to give her up.  But when Kylo Ren finally decides, it's Finn who understands him the most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recognition

“This is a trap,” Finn whispers, sweat dripping down his cheek as shaking hands pilot the _Falcon_ towards the planet specified in the transmission.  “Should have called Poe, or Chewie.  The bastard is going to kill us when I land.”

Finn remembers the botched mission earlier in the morning.  He sees the glowing pale purple of Rey’s sabers as they fight off wave upon wave of storm troopers.  Still feels the dread filling them both as they realize that their intelligence reports had been wrong.  The broken First Order base on some backwater planet in the outer ring was definitely not abandoned.  When had Rey realized that it was a trap?

The fear crushes him again, remembering when he’d turned to shout at her to _“Keep running!  We’re almost clear!”_ only to see nothing but the small scatter of storm troopers still following him. 

But no Rey. 

The guilt threatens to swallow him again when he remembers for the thousandth time that he left his friend behind without realizing it, that Rey is _gone_ , and she’s not answering his frantic calls on the comm.

How had he been so stupid not to realize she was what they wanted?

The _Falcon_ shakes at it enters the atmosphere, old wire and metal protesting the hasty entry course Finn sets.

He’d tried to go back, the storm troopers still following him not prepared for the ferocity of his desperation.  There was no chance he was going to let Rey be taken again.  Then the hallways had shuddered, dust raining from the old lighting panels, and a series of catastrophic booms told Finn all he’d needed to know.  He’d barely made it out a side exit before half the crumbling base had disintegrated.

It wasn’t until later, after Finn had spent a frantic four hours scanning and searching the system for any sign of the ship that must have taken Rey, that he’d resolved to send a message to the resistance.  They needed to know that Rey was _gone._   He’d stared numbly at the return transmission relaying that it would take 17 hours for them to reach his position.  Finn’s fingers were cramped knots when he finally unclenched his fists.

And then, 6 hours after his message to the resistance, when Rey had been missing for almost 11 hours, the small light next to the captain’s chair began to blink, signaling a subspace transmission sent directly to the _Falcon’s_ computers.  Finn’s heart squeezed.  Had Rey escaped?  Did she need his help?

He’d listened to the transmission three times before the impossible words, spoken by an unmodulated voice Finn never wanted to hear again, began to make sense.  It took another nine playbacks for Finn to decide that the insane message was worth validating.  His friend’s life was worth any risk.

The coordinates in the message were programmed into the computer before Finn even considered calling for help.

The _Falcon_ finally stops vibrating when it clears the upper atmosphere and begins to approach the coordinates from the message.  Finn flips the switch that he thinks activates the shields, takes deep breaths, and focuses on keeping the _Falcon_ upright.  Then he sees it.

The small black ship, more of a shuttle really, is sitting on the edge of the tree line, gleaming in the oncoming sunrise.  No blue glow to signal the engines are prepared for a speedy takeoff.  As Finn circles the _Falcon_ for landing he sees two figures sitting in the grass at the back of the ship.  His breath hitches.  Was one of them Rey?

His landing is nothing like Rey’s, all hard banging and the sound of supplies falling from unsecured storage compartments.  But the ship stays together.  That’s all Finn cares about, and the two blasters he carries with him to the hatch.  He slings one over his shoulder and points the other at the door, his hand hovering over the control panel.  At the last possible moment he stuffs a bomb into the pocket of his jacket for good measure.

“This is definitely a trap,” he whispers to himself one more time before opening the door.

Finn quickly circles around the ramp, old training kicking in as he ducks behind the metal to survey what he’s flown into.  There are no blaster shots, no pounding feet running to the ship.  Only the sound of wind rustling trees in the distance, the wet stickiness of morning dew in the air, and the smell of damp earth from recent rain comes to Finn.  If it’s an ambush, it’s going to be subtle. 

With a tightened grip on his blaster Finn steps out from behind the ramp and points it towards the two figures by the opposite ship.  He slowly walks towards them, shifting the blaster to the right when he sees the one in black.

Slowly, almost tenderly, Kylo Ren slides his arms around Rey’s grey clad form to help her stand.

Finn sees everything.  Sees the way Rey winces, her fingers grabbing the cloth at Kylo’s chest in pain when her leg refuses to bear her weight.  Sees the black bandages wrapped around her thigh and hand, the shorter length of one side of Kylo’s cloak.  Most importantly, he sees the silver gleam of her sabers on each hip in the glowing morning sunlight, and sees the blackness of Kylo’s at his.

Finn keeps the blaster steady as he walks to the pair, waiting for the pull of it ripping from his fingers.  It doesn’t come.

Kylo says something to Rey that Finn is still too far away to hear, and she nods.  Rey shifts her weight, and then Kylo is helping her move towards Finn and the _Falcon._

It’s strange, walking towards them.  Finn _feels_ Rey, her brightness and warmth leading him like a beacon.  He knows that whatever is happening, she must feel safe with the man next to her to be projecting her emotions so strongly.  Next to her is that crackling he hasn’t felt since the _Starkiller_ , the low thrum of burning, raging power his nightmares love to associate with the young Sith.

He’d wondered to Poe, after Rey had tried to explain what that feeling was, how she could understand why someone would choose to live like that.

Kylo’s power feels different this time, less like volatile lightning that makes the hairs on the back of his neck raise.  It still scares the shit out of him, but Finn knows there is something different in the man he faced down a year ago.

With a swallow Finn focuses on keeping his breathing steady.  Rey is still much too close to Kylo, this could still be a trap, they could still die.

Both parties stop with barely ten feet between them, Finn trying to figure out what to say.  Kylo is still supporting most of Rey’s weight, but besides the bandages, and some bruising on her face he can see now that they’re closer, she seems to be okay.  Kylo’s face is blank, a disturbing difference from their last confrontation, only to twist in concern when Rey lets out a low hiss as she tries to move on her own.

Finn decides to screw the negotiation phrases running through his mind and dives right in.

“What happened to you?” he asks Rey, eying Kylo.

Rey growls out a name that nearly freezes Finn’s blood, “Snoke.”

“Shit,” Finn breathes, “I knew I should have gone back for you.”

Rey shakes her head, giving him a reassuring look, “They had me before they blew the base.  I thought you were dead.”

Finn nods, slightly startled that it had never occurred to him what Rey thought of his fate.  He looks between Rey and the silent man holding her up, trying to figure out if he should even ask the question screaming at him.

“How did…did he?” Finn gestures to Kylo with the blaster, working through his stuttering question, “I mean…If Snoke had you, _how are you here?”_

Kylo suddenly finds the grass, the _Falcon_ behind Finn, Rey’s face, much more interesting than watching the man pointing a blaster at him.  The answer screams through the space between them. 

There is only one way Kylo Ren would be standing in this field with Rey. 

There is no way Finn is lowering his blaster until he hears it.

Finally, Kylo looks back at him, and Finn wants to shout at what he sees in his eyes.  It brings back Jakku, the village on that impossibly hot wasteland of a planet, when he’d seen what was being asked of him.  Seen what firing his blaster would do, and said _no._

Kylo Ren does not deserve to have that look.

“I saved her,” is all Kylo says.

Finn wants to beat Kylo with his blaster, wants to rip Rey from his arms, wants to scream at him _“Why couldn’t you have realized this before you murdered your father?!”_   Finn doesn’t though.  His breaths stay steady, the blaster remains pointed at Kylo, and the moment stretches into a silence Finn is positive only he and Kylo can feel.  The look on Kylo’s face never goes away.

He understands now, why Kylo’s power feels different.  Finn remembers Rey telling him about the fight on _Starkiller_ , that Kylo felt like a living war, constantly fighting for one thing while being drawn towards another.  How she’d felt his confusion, anger, that what he’d thought he’d needed so desperately had only made it worse.  It was a shame it had taken him so long to choose.

Finn lowers the blaster as sunlight finally breaks over the horizon to cast them in its orange glow.

Rey sends Finn a wave of her warmth overpowered with a flood of hope.  His gaze breaks from Kylo’s to her, to her small smile.  Her bubbling excitement pricks up the corners of his mouth as Finn finally rushes to his friend and carefully hugs her; grateful that he can feel her laugh, get a whiff of the smell of whatever it is she washes her hair with.  It smells like home.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” she whispers as Finn feels wetness soak into his shirt.

Finn chuckles, “I’m pretty hard to kill.”

Laughter, his and Rey’s, fills the field as he pulls away and Rey shifts her weight so Finn can support her with his free arm.  Rey scrubs the tears from her cheeks as she turns into the sunlight, the soft glow lighting her tanned face.

“Come on, there’s a neutral planet a few systems away,” Finn says, “We can get you patched up there.”

“Fine with me,” Rey says, tightening her grip around Finn’s chest.  They move forward a few steps when Finn realizes that their dark shadow is still in the middle of the field.

Finn looks to Kylo and nods his head to the _Falcon._   “You coming?” he asks.

Kylo’s brow creases in confusion.  “You want me to come with you?”

Finn almost wants to tell him no.  Almost wants to tell him to run away and go hide in the deepest hole in the galaxy while they try to fix all the damage he’s done.  He doesn’t, though.  Because he remembers Poe’s face during their escape, remembers feeling that staggering wave of relief that someone good would help him, would believe in him, that he wouldn’t be alone in a galaxy that had every right to hate him.  Finn had only needed one person.  Kylo was definitely going to need more than Rey.

“We all know they’re already tracking that ship,” Finn says with a nod to the obviously stolen shuttle at the tree line, “You won’t get too far before they catch up to you,” Finn ignores the sick feeling that maybe that’s what Kylo wants, “If you want, we can help you get a clean ship.  Help you get as far away from here as possible.”

“Or you could come with us,” Rey offers with her excited smile of a newly hatched plan.

“What?” both Finn and Kylo say at the same time.

Rey shrugs the best she can under Finn’s arm and gives Kylo a soft smile.  “The resistance won’t mind if we disappear for a while.  They’ll understand once they hear what happened.”

 _Your mother will understand_ , is left unspoken.

Kylo’s eyes are shining in the sunlight as he looks around them.  “It’s going to take more than a while,” he whispers.

“That’s okay,” Rey says, “I’m used to waiting.”

Kylo looks at the _Falcon_ , then back to the pair standing in front of him.  Looks at Rey’s beseeching face, to Finn’s carefully neutral expression as he waits for Kylo to decide the man he wants to be.

“Please,” Rey pleads, “You don’t have to do this alone.”

A tear falls down Kylo’s face when he finally nods at Rey.  Finn can’t help the small twist of happiness he feels, although he’s not sure how much of it is his own or Rey’s.  Finn doesn’t fight it though.  He just smiles and helps Rey start walking towards the _Falcon_.

Later, in the middle of the night while Rey sleeps, Finn stops in front of Kylo where he sits in the galley and hands him a cup of caf.  Kylo looks at Finn with narrowed eyes before taking the cup and drinking it in nearly one gulp.  Finn leans against the wall and watches their newest crewmember look at the cup like it will solve all the galaxy’s problems.

“It’s hardest the first few weeks.  Sleeping, I mean,” Kylo’s eyes dart to Finn at the words, “but the nightmares get better.”

Kylo nods, his eyes taking on that odd shine that Finn still refuses to acknowledge as tears.

“Thank you,” Kylo says. 

Finn nods and heads back to his bunk.

**Author's Note:**

> Not my first fanfic, but definitely my first foray into Star Wars. My thoughts that while Rey is going to be one to drag Kylo Ren/Ben Solo back to the light, it's going to be Finn who is the first person to really give him a chance.


End file.
